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So, about that Karma leak...

I'm pretty mad about this, there is no "balance" to her kit anymore, her whole thing was in her passive where you could get so much AP after getting beat on, so you could put down huge shields, heal for decent amounts etc. Why couldn't she have just been the support she was specializing in skirmishes?

Right now Zilean is in the same place, people run away with his ult on them all the time (dont always understand his mechanics), he is played more often AP mid than support these days, he is my favorite champ, has been since day 1, does this mean you will change him too?

This is likely just to be skimmed over and ignored, but every little voice counts I suppose.

I love Karma, but I'll admit that she lacked distinction and direction. There's a reason some players have never heard of her before. She needed this revamp for multiple reasons. But this new kit is lacking a certain something. Something crucial to any Karma's gameplay: Healing. One of the best things about Karma was the fact that you could heal your entire team with one wave...in very rare circumstances. That, along with her passive, made her unique. Combined with her passive, she could heal more the more hurt she was. She was the single most unique support champion, in my opinion.

So yes, as far as the aesthetic makeover goes, she really needed it. Her new kit, as it stands, lacks her unique supporting ability. I'd suggest lumping this new passive in with her Mantra ult itself and letting her keep her old Inner Flame passive, as well as letting her Q heal in some way. As one of the very few healing support champions in LoL, I beg you guys to reconsider this.

I agree with adding her new Passive to R & returning her old Passive.
I think they should add that if you tether a team mate then they are healed instead as an easy fix.

They could've went crazy & been unique w/ the rework. Maybe make Spirit Bond give lifesteal when tethered to a friendly that heals you for w/e they lifesteal for within the duration. That would lean her way more towards support though. Or
Whoever has your shield on rcvs the heal from tether as well & you get a 20% healing boost from tether if the shield is on yourself instead.

I agree with adding her new Passive to R & returning her old Passive.
I think they should add that if you tether a team mate then they are healed instead as an easy fix.

They could've went crazy & been unique w/ the rework. Maybe make Spirit Bond give lifesteal when tethered to a friendly that heals you for w/e they lifesteal for within the duration. That would lean her way more towards support though. Or
Whoever has your shield on rcvs the heal from tether as well & you get a 20% boost if the shield is on yourself instead.

I'd very much prefer that if they are planning on having that passive incorporated into ANY part of Karma, her skills should not be lackluster if she's not in Mantra.

About the W, it's very iffy. Considering she was supposed to be support in the first place, I would just make the tether on an ally increase both of your armor and magic resist. It'd make turret dives much easier than just a little movement speed boost like the current Karma. If it'd lower the duration of CC along with it....hallelujah.

Honestly, I dont like the changes... She was fanastic the way she was.. If people dont know a champs abilities after a few months of them being out then there is something wrong...Now she has no heal except for herself, losing the AoE base + %missing health is a terrible loss, it alone could help tremendously in team fights...instead of being one of the best supports shes bing tossed into mid...oh well...cant help that people can't appreciate how good really was.

I'd very much prefer that if they are planning on having that passive incorporated into ANY part of Karma, her skills should not be lackluster if she's not in Mantra.

About the W, it's very iffy. Considering she was supposed to be support in the first place, I would just make the tether on an ally increase both of your armor and magic resist. It'd make turret dives much easier than just a little movement speed boost like the current Karma. If it'd lower the duration of CC along with it....hallelujah.

Btw, gonna read your post now - I know it was dedicated to ItemsGuy, not sure if he'll be able to respond so if not I'll do, note that we aren't ignoring you!

Btw, gonna read your post now - I know it was dedicated to ItemsGuy, not sure if he'll be able to respond so if not I'll do, note that we aren't ignoring you!

No problem, although I will repeat the fact that Riot's controlling the concept, and if they feel that your suggestion would prolong the development that much without many gains involved, it wouldn't pass through anyway.
Trying never hurts though.

No problem, although I will repeat the fact that Riot's controlling the concept, and if they feel that your suggestion would prolong the development that much without many gains involved, it wouldn't pass through anyway.
Trying never hurts though.

Very well aware of the fact that Riot makes the calls, I'm just going to give my reasoning why they are making the wrong call as it's doing the opposite of what they say what they want to achieve with champion design.

I know what you have said about that as well, please read the post below!

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*Please don't bother this post unless you are SirLapse, you might want to read this post though if you want a in-depth and detailled analysis of what Karma is supposed to represent and how the current rework of Riot does not live up to that.

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SirLapse:

Now, for ItemsGuy and Bilbo. (Anyone who isn't either of these two can pass on by, unless you're bored)
Here's what I'm starting to find as I'm reading both of your posts more and more

Let's see.

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You're trying to form your own concept of "Karma," when you not only were not the creators of the character, but had no part in its advancement as a character before all this. That's very outgoing (innovative things are good in most cases).

No offense - but you're wrong. Wanna know why we 'don't just give Karma a direction we just want to give her out of personal interest?' Here's why:

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In her new default - the following is present in her visual design all extremely characteristic to her new theme she is obviously supposed to reflect:

-Taijitu

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/Taijitu - it's basically another word for Yin and Yang - the green glowing dragons that are visually present on her new default skin represent Yin and Yang and dragons are commonly used to represent the symbol of Yin and Yang.

-Eastern-style tattoos (dragon)

-Glowing

And over-all the entire dress and the fact they show more of her skin gives a bigger indication and representation of how the character is influenced.

The weight of the spiritual stuff in the new one is the huge floating yin-yang
Everything else just helps tie Karma to it visually.

Taijitu is green and glowing? Karma is green and glowing. It shows that there is some supernatural "energy" to her, which can then be associated with "spiritual energy" due to the visual ties to the taijitu.

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They've incoperated the three following themes in her visual appearance:

Karma
Yin-Yang
Spiritualism

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I hope that you are already understanding what I'm getting at - Ashe has the theme 'frost archer' so she looks like an archer with a frost bow and plays like one, Olaf's theme is 'berzerker' so he totally looks like one and thus plays like one, Brand's theme is 'fire' or 'firemage' so he looks like one and plays like one, Rengar is a hunter/predatorso he looks like one and plays like one, Z.A.C's theme is 'blob-guy' so he looks like an actual blob and plays like one.

IMPORTANT: We can safely say that especially with default skins of champions they try to capture the core essence of what the champion is supposed to reflect through visual appearance and through playstyle - it wouldn't make any sense if for example Brand looks how he looks but ends up spewing out water instead of fire, would it?

IMPORTANT: Now Karma's new default screams the following three themes: Karma, Yin-Yang and Spiritualism.

ANOTHER BULLET-POINT: it's extremely vague, abstract and not readable if she doesn't reflect those themes at all and ends up being a character that reflects a playstyle of 'tension' and 'momentum' - something her new playstyle is about yet does not remotely match with what her new visual appearance tells her.

In fact, it's pretty darn misleading and thus harder to understand which is what you want to avoid at all costs in a game that has over 100 characters.

The entire reason the community is upset about all of this because they've basically ripped Karma apart with her new kit, she is supposed to represent yin-yang, karma and spiritualism but ends up doing something else entirely with this new rework, hence all of the reactions: 'Hurr durr this ain't Karma anymore, this could entirely be a new champion!'

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But, it is Riot's job to form the character into how they feel in the end she should "grow." The thing I'm seeing from your concept literally changes all the previous skills, and instead of boosting her other skills, you change them entirely.

Originally posted byBestbilboWatched it? These are the three main points to create a good champion, these are Riot's own guidelines:

-Consistant Theming
-Readability
-Counterplay

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If one of those aspects isn't good enough or isn't present it should mean they should go back to the drawing board.

Giving me the 'excuse' or argument 'Karma wasn't really that much present in her design previously either' is a valid argument when we are discussing old Karma, but it's pretty much irrelevant when talking about a rework.

The entire point of Reworks is to improve on the quality of the character, in this case Karma's main problem was readability (her fans being a weird, unreadable weapon of choice, unpractical dress, etcetera)

The designers completely have the ability to change the gears and thus the direction of the character.

I hope it's safe to say that an entire playstyle that revolves around 'Karma' is way more readable than a playstyle that revolves around 'tension and momentum' - I hope it's safe to say people would have a better feeling in an instant what to expect when facing a character that's all about 'What goes around, comes around' than a character that's about 'tension and momentum'.

This all has to do with readability and maybe old Karma wasn't so much about 'Karma' as a central theme at all, in terms of readability this could actually be acknowledged to be a flaw as changing her central theme to 'Karma' is way more readable, so if they have to change her lore along with it to make it more central over there, so be it. It's the entire point of reworks.

My point being - to clarify, it's obvious the following themes are incorperated in her design: Spiritualist, Karma, Yin-Yang. Now you say here that 'balance' aka 'yin-yang' has been the main focus previously.

Now just because 'yin-yang' has been her main focus previously doesn't mean they shouldn't change that fact because perhaps another theme that is incorperated could be way more readable and yet again, readability is paramount in a game over 100+ champions available to play.

Let me run through the three themes in terms of readability, individually taking every single theme incorperated into her design as main focus:

'This character is all about Spiritualism' - great, now that's extremely abstract, there could be thousands of things you could speculate about, it's not really readable. Similar like her new 'tension and momentum' focus, it's not readable.

'This character is all about Yin-Yang duality' - Much, much better! Why? Because it's safe to assume she's going to have opposite mechanics in her kit, I have seen a dude here in this thread that had posted his own version of Karma, a Karma rework that had this 'yin-yang' as main focus, by having a Yin and Yang form, one stance for 'aggresive' and one for 'defense' - Is it readable?

It's more readable than 'spiritualism' or 'tension and momentum' as you know/expect more about the design: the kit is going to be full of opposite mechanics.

But then, would you know what all of the spells would generally work towards to from an instant? No, because you don't know yet what mechanics will be used, in other words: You would have to know at least 3 abilities of one form to know what the second form would do - as the second form will be the opposite of mechanics of form 1.

'This character is all about 'Karma' or 'What goes around, comes around' - most readable theme out of all the themes that are currently incorperated in her design.

Why? Because right from an instant you know what all of her abillities work towards to: punishing aggresion and redirecting it, it doesn't matter exactly what the effects to working towards that goal - the most important part is that you know what the character is all about right from an instant.

Does it really matter for a new player that 3 rings of Vayne's silver bolts will proc true damage on him? Not neseccarily, the main point is that the player obviously notices that collecting three rings isn't good - similar like that the main point is that the player notices that everything that Karma is all about will be about punishing aggresion and redirecting it.

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You even don't care how much the Lore is affected, even though it does matter to some like myself. With that skill set in mind, you've already created a completely different champion just by forming your own concept. Anyone can perceive your interpretation of Karma as something different- even if you define it, there's more than one way of thinking about it. I actively believe that you wanted her created as such, not using the predecessor as a template to improve on like Riot is trying to do.

No offense - by no means am I trying to sound condescending or hostile with the following, just going to just be as clear and bland as possible:

The well famous 'READ LORE NOOB' argument - voila:

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Originally Posted byBestbilboIf you are saying people should read the lore of every champion before they actually understand why things work why things work, you are giving people homework instead of creating a design everyone gets the purpose of when looking at it in an instant.

Let me include a Red quote to back me up:

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IronStylus:

Scion is an interesting case. Absolutely, the dude needs a visual update BADLY. Grumpy Monkey has some ideas here, some very good ideas. I agree that he fits into that weird area that some older champions fall into, where the visual theme doesn't really match the look. Scion wields a giant axe, one which, by today's standards, you'd expect to be chopped in half with. But, as has been mentioned, he's more of a Mage. Same thing goes for Mordakieser, big mace dude you'd expect to be bonked on the head by, instead he casts a lot of spell and.. nabs your ghost?

Meanwhile, these days, we want to create a fantasy that people can easily buy into. Darius is a proper axe dude, he wants to chop you with said axe, and as him you want to chop people down with said axe.

Understanding why Mordekaiser is so confusing requires us to read his lore - it's Burden of Knowledge and hurts the readability of his character and thus the accesability and structural integrity of the game.

Also Sion - you expect to be chopped into pieces but ends up magically stunning you and magically shielding himself, which doesn't have anything to do with 'Undead Warrior' as his theme. What happens? He's lore dependant aka 'less readable' aka 'burden of knowledge' - this is the single line in his lore that makes up for these weird abilities in his kit:

'Sion's reanimation actually bestowed new powers on him and increased the potency of his existing abilities, making him even more of a terror to behold on the battlefield.'

The sentence doesn't make Sion more awesome or contribute to his personality or character as a whole, it's purely there to justify the fact he has some weird unreadable stuff in his kit you wouldn't expect him to have.

Hence with the Redesign we've said it's just better to make it as readable as possible and thus get rid of the entire current lore-dependance of Karma - making her readable right from an instant as all of her abilities would work towards the goal of 'karma' or 'what goes around comes around'

Like Darius and what IronStylus says himself - nobody's forcing you to read the lore of Darius in order to understand how he works, right from the get-go you get he's going to be smashing and beating people up with that axe and that's what he's all about - you know, that is what makes people 'buy into the world of League of Legends easily' - throughout readable designs.

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In the end, what I'm trying to say is that your champ just seems to embody the name better to a certain regard-however it is not the same champ that was previously presented. Even if it can represent it better,

Their job is to make a thematically tied and readable character - it's a fact her current playstyle of 'tension' and 'momentum' is not only completely vague, abstract and unreadable, it's pretty misleading from what we get of her new visual appearance.

The entire point of reworks is to improve on the design of the character, whether that is improving on readability, theming or counterplay, in this case fixing her readability was the main focus, so we say they have made the wrong call by not giving her the main focus of 'Karma' which is the most readable one and like you say yourself - has to potential to be the most obvious and represent it better.

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Riot works on trying to build off of the predecessor instead of destroying all of what they originally had in place. That's something that I assume you would like to change, but the fact of the matter is-that's the only way they have done things so far. Exceptions in the future might include Sion where the original concept was distorted to the point of just barely being relevant.

Just like Sion isn't as a readable 'undead warrior' because he makes a magical shield and magically stuns you and thus being unreadable, the same happend with Karma, only her passive was readable, it represented 'Karma' aka 'What goes around, comes around' the rest of her kit were a bunch of mechanics thrown onto her with the theme 'magical fans' which doesn't make sense at all, yet again abstract and extremely vague, Riot has said in this very thread that they've removed the fans for readability's sake.

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You can post Riot's quotes all you like, but I think they can agree with me on the fact that you're recreating a champ in the image you feel that it needs to be, not advancing the original character like Riot is trying to do. Advancing to them means sacrificing obsolete fragments due to the meta while trying to maintain what the champ stood for in their eyes. If they're willing to give up and do some things, I don't see how a compromise can't be reached somehow. But a complete redeux like you're suggesting just prolongs development heavily and unnecessarily.

Their job yet again is to create a thematically tied character that is readable and provides counterplay, Riot's current rework:

-Flowing kit & counterplay.

Lack of: consistant theming, readability and on top of that misleading: playstyle does not represent visual appearance in any way.

Something we like the Redesign has all.

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Their reworks for Eve and Twitch pretty much killed the "always stealthed" option that, for Twitch players, seemed like an impossible condition to surpass in order to play. It's not hard to manage the stacks if you were conditioned to playing without Spray and Pray as a first resort (like many Twitches already had). They destroyed the imbalanced gameplay (forced the opponent to buy stealth detect in the case of Eve/Twitch) and things that impaired the character as a result of having those cheap plays available.

Yet they are both thematically tied and readable characters because their kits work to one common goal:

Twitch - spreading his disease.
Eve - dedicated roaming kit.

Just like TF has a dedicated ganking kit just due to how natural it is for him to gank - we aren't going to argue that, right?

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When I spoke of balance, the point gets ignored almost entirely.

When you speak of balance, you more or less sketch situations where either the Karma is being outplayed with you saying 'YOUR KIT IS UNDERPOWERED' as a result, or you sketch a situation where she outplays the opponent with results in you saying 'YOUR KIT IS BROKENLY OVERPOWERED.

To be honest you are not really being fair, but let's see what you got:

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Once you initiate and have someone possess the mark, you're defenseless. Completely. Junglers are meant to be experts at taking out high priority targets, and a squishy champion like Karma simply cannot last against that at all because your kit doesn't give any form of defense afterward (current Karma has to be at an almost perfect position in a team fight to utilize her effectively, this includes your team and knowing how she plays, not to mention possessing Mantra or potentially being useless)

1. Yes, you have to make sure on what time you place the crest on yourself or on somebody else, this has to do with her skill cap and it's not really a flaw, it's no surprise people punish you for making mistakes.

1.2 Her Q ability - the ability of being able to move your crest is similar like Orianna Q, the sole purpose of it is to constantly being able to move it around, it would have a fairly short cooldown so even if you have made a mistake putting the crest on someone else, shouldn't be too long untill you have it back on you to defend yourself.

2. Junglers are not meant to take out high priority targets, it depends on what champion they play really.

3. Karma wouldn't really be a high priority target - she's a support and thus is most of the time focused last unless in a very bad position - which counts for every champion or player: if you are in a very bad position, you'll die and get focused regardless just because you're an easy kill.

4. Her passive in the Redesign is still 'Inner Flame' that means that even is she gets dunked on, the lower she gets the more she'll actually be able to defend herself (such as an incredibly empowered RE heal on herself so if anything, in some situations karma would just be able to 'trololololol' and punish the enemy because they are actually focusing her, which is what they shouldn't do at all when she's got her crest on her.

5. The fact that it was a problem that 'your team barely knows how Karma works' is due to her old kit being unreadable, like I've said many times it didn't make a whole lot of sense hence it's way harder to memorize.

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Your kit does the exact same thing, it revolves around your team reacting based on how she plays, and you need Mantra or the skills will be below average.

The enemy is completely in hand of what Karma does and how her team plays with her, enemy engages? Your team can just go into the fight while Karma does the job she is supposed to do.

Ofcourse it still requires some teamwork but no more than a Malphite that notices he got Orianna's ball on him, he should notice that so he jumps in for a wombo combo malphite R orianna R combo.

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The passive practically encourages your Karma to receive damage, and since she's squishy, she'll never fully utilize the passive in a team fight (unless they let her escape).

She has a lot of tools to kite enemies, redirect spells to her own defense while actually converting that to aggresion in the same time and she'll be healing up way more and rapidly the lower she gets.

Yes - it's a handy passive that makes you stronger when you get low, but assuming she'll never utilize it is not correct.

Please note that you are yet again giving baseless claims here: 'SHE"LL NEVER UTILIZIE HER PASSIVE IF THE KARMA PLAYER IS BAD' is what you are saying here, essentially.

A good Karma would time RE and RW or RQ at the right moment to stay alive, utilizing her passive, how effective that is going to be? That all depends on the numbers.

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Soft CC isn't enough, many people have already said so, which is why they are unhappy with the untimeliness of the Root on W. The meta does call for a form of peeling or hard CC. This is undeniable thanks to how leading supports are doing, and saying that "it'll work out" without any tests just makes me think less of your kit. This is also why I'm trusting Riot more; results are available to them, and results matter.

Not a lot I can say against to this and just saying that you feel the meta strives for a form of peeling or hard CC doesn't make your point anymore valid, until we actually see a support released in the near future in the current meta with soft CC we can determine what's the actual problem.

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Let me clarify one major problem with that skill set also: It revolves around a shield. I'm stating it for the major point that, "What if it's broken?" The effectiveness moves to Karma, and since she is not always there in the action (due to the large range you gave for the Q passive), she is now out of the fight, unable to help her carry until she gets close enough (and guess what? If you didn't level Q, that shield is going to be pretty easy to break regardless).

If you are talking about the fact that you assume her crest is breakable - that would make no sense indeed, that would make her completely unreliable.

I believe the 'shield' you mention is her 'Crest' in this case - please note you can't target it, it's a permanent part of Karma and all her abilities revolve around her crest, just like Orianna's ball is a permanent part of Orianna and all her abilities revolve around her ball.

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Old Karma can activate W for a save, along with the added heal from Q2. The movement speed bonus is very important, because you're ignoring one of the most used skills in the game-Ignite.

The Redesign has an ability that heals an ally that has the crest on him/her the more damage they take in a period of time.

And to be frank, all summoner spells in League are a big 'F*CK YOU' in general as there barely is counterplay to it.

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The biggest problem with your kit is that Summoner spells shut it down too easily, and if they aren't used, gives a huge amount of pressure in the laning phase.

I don't really understand what you are trying to say with it neither, if Taric stuns you, you are able to cleanse it - is Taric now useless?

You've jumped from 'YOUR KIT IS OP' to 'YOUR KIT IS UP' so many times, I'm not sure how you think about that yourself for saying that : P

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LoL is unique in how it gives supports a damage skill or two, but you only have one damage skill that can potentially be weak (if focusing on barrier or heal)

Guess what - every freakin' damage spell of supports can completely be netigated by heal or barrier - do you honestly think Janna Q and W, Thresh Q and E or Taric W outburst that?

No. The entire point of barrier and heal is saying sending a big 'F*CK YOU' message, in the early game they are extremely hard to 'destroy' especially for supports. Lol.

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a passive (Q) that needs massive testing to see if the values won't be OP,

There is obvious counterplay: If the crest is on a target, don't attack!

Finding a value for the spell that doesn't make it broken OP yet not feel underwhelming shouldn't be so hard because there is actually stuff you can do to avoid it.

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a heal that has to not be able to match up with Q's normal effect, and all that with Mantra still being a necessity to be worth something. Oh, and a passive that's broken enough to be removed off of champs constantly. Riot's trying NOT to accomplish that.

Can you back up these claims? You are saying a lot of things without really giving reasons why.

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I bolded the points that you should focus on, I'm tired of seeing you miss the point from piecing off my sentences from one another.

I hope you'll actually read all of the above so you hopefully have a better understanding of the points you are making and the counterarguments we give to that.

Also, to give you a better guideline what might help you in explaining the flaws you think our design has, click here for a list of commonly known Anti-Patterns, a thread by Zileas. (http://na.leagueoflegends.com/board/showthread.php?t=293417)

If you find some of those anti-patterns in our design, explain them and mention which anti-pattern it is to back up your point and proceed to give your reasoning.